Thursday, January 14, 2010

What does “electronic music” mean in a world where nearly all recorded sound reaches us electronically? And what makes it a “radical” form in an age where nearly every minor deviation from the status quo is hailed as a “revolution” in affairs? What are the unique cultural strategies and social dynamics of ‘radical electronic music’ in the post-Techno era? Author and recording artists Thomas Bey William Bailey hopes to answer all these questions and more at his exclusive Dorkbot experience, discussing subjects including (but not limited to): the ongoing file-sharing debate, open-source music software, subversive uses of sampling technology, ‘microsound’ aesthetics, the real meaning of ‘extreme’ music, the debate over 'local scenes' vs. dissipated global communities linked through the internet, the new trend towards synesthesia (or sight-sound synthesis) in sound art, the shift in electronic music instruments from attempting to "emulate the real world" to creating one that is audibly alien...

Thomas Bey William Bailey is a multi-disciplinary artist and cultural researcher, whose work has manifested itself as books, articles, music releases, sound installations, experimental radio shows, and completely undocumented or personal creative actions / interventions. He has lived and worked in Japan, Central Europe,and the U.S., struggling to overcome the psychic fatigue which is unique to our 21st century congestion culture. His work critiques and frames this culture by avoiding the obvious, easily perceptible middle ground and instead focusing on 'micro' and 'macro' aspects of lived experience in an information-saturated epoch. To this end, Bailey's work tends towards either 'atomizing' life (e.g. making recordings of asthmatic breath and incomprehensible sleep-talking, strobing videos limited to only a couple visual elements) or illuminating its hyper-complexity with intense noise, etc. It is a celebration of 'life before death' and a valuation of intimate exploratory nature above mass technological progress. Many of these ideas are further fleshed out in Bailey's first book-length survey of his influences and allies, "Micro Bionic", published 2009 on Creation Books.

What is a "dorkbot"?! The idea of the international dorkbot network is "people doing strange things with electricity" and meeting in informal, friendly environments to discuss their projects. These projects could include hardware hacks, New Media Art projects, creative code, circuit bent musical instruments or wild DIY garage science!